In 2010, a new national service corps is getting off the ground. Blue Engine, based in New York City, aims to recruit a corps of about a dozen fellows for the 2010-2011 school year to facilitate daily, differentiated, small-group instruction for high school freshmen. Our guest is Nick Ehrmann—Blue Engine's engine and a Teach For America alum— who s…

As Peace Corps nears it's 50th Anniversary in 2011, applications are on the rise, fewer Volunteer positions are getting funded, the Senate just confirmed a new agency director, and the number of Peace Corps alumni is nearing 200,000. Helping connect the dots among the agency's fiscal needs, and Volunteers past, present, and future is the National P…

Today's guest on The New Service podcast is Aaliyah El-Amin, an alumna of Teach For America’s 2000 Atlanta corps. Teach For America is the national corps of recent college graduates who commit to teach for at least two years in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in expanding educational opportunity. In the 2008-09 school yea…

June is Pride Month, so The New Service podcast from Idealist.org is taking a closer look at the experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals serving in Peace Corps and AmeriCorps. Today's guests are lesbian and gay former service corps participants: Chad Jeremy, a former AmeriCorps NCCC corps member, currently a trainin…

Corporate social responsibility and citizen service are increasingly becoming two sides of the same coin, as more business-sector employees and clients demand opportunities to improve their communities as part of their workplace culture. Exemplifying the beneficial opportunities of cross-sector alliances is the new national partnership between the …

The Resource Center, a website of the Corporation for National and Community Service, is the repository of over 8,000 nodes of training tools, publications, and effective practices to support volunteer programs, nonprofits, and people involved with the AmeriCorps family of programs. The Resource Center–free and accessible to all audience–boasts a 3…

In 2009, hundreds of emerging legal experts across the United States will offer assistance in helping people who face mortgage foreclosure and other problems through the Equal Justice Works 2009 Summer AmeriCorps program and the one-year AmeriCorps Legal Fellows program. Every year in this country, four out of five low-income people in need of lega…

Kiff Gallagher is founder of Peacelabs Music and the Music National Service Initiative (MNSI). In 2008, The Aspen Institute named MNSI's MusicianCorps — a developing AmeriCorps-type program that will enable musicians to serve in low-income schools — one of the top ten public policy proposals that would strengthen the United States. According to The…

Today's guest on The New Service podcast series is Scott Beale, Founder and Executive Director of Atlas Corps, a service and exchange corps for professionals in the NGO sector. Also known as a "two-way Peace Corps," Atlas Corps brings rising professionals from NGOs in the Global South to the United States to serve for a year; U.S. professionals fin…

In this episode of the The New Service Podcast, Amy speaks with Bonnie Thie, the country director of Peace Corps's China program. Bonnie served in Peace Corps Afghanistan, where she served for three years in the 1970s. She served 18 years with the Environmental Protection Agency most recently as the director of policy, communications and resource m…

Today we're launching a new podcast series as part of the Idealist.org podcasts. Called "The New Service" podcast, the show will highlight service corps programs, people, and career paths. It will be included along with the Idealist.org Careers Podcast feed. Today's guest on The New Service is Colonel Robert L. Gordon, III, Senior Vice President of…